A key precept in work place motivation theory is that management knows what job attributes are valued by the employee. Management can benefit by asking employees what they want from their work experience (i.e., job attribute preferences), rather than assume they know. This is particularly important to Polish high technology companies that are in transition to a free-market economy and to Polish workers who must be appropriately motivated to compete globally. This study attempts to better understand the job attribute preferences of Polish managers and workers, the potential gaps between Polish managers' perception of their workers' preferences (system), and how these preferences are affected by the worker's personal economic situation (sub system) and by business organization type (supra system). Managers and workers from five Polish high technology enterprises were surveyed on-site regarding their job attribute preferences. The results compared to a similar survey done with six American high technology firms(Eder 1988). Consistent with Maslow's prepotentcy theory, workers who tended to be optimistic about their personal economic situation rated all five extrinsic job attributes higher and four of the five intrinsics lower than those workers who tended to be pessimistic. Polish workers at firms that operated under central planning had only a few differences in their job attribute preferences indicating a strong supra-system or organizational effect on individuals in the firm. Contrary to what was expected, the Polish managers and workers rated a number of intrinsic attributes higher than their American counterparts suggesting a pent up need for intrinsic-type motivational policies. Polish managers appeared to be closer and more in touch with their workers than their American counterparts. American managers clearly underestimated the importance of intrinsic job attributes and overestimated the importance of the extrinsics, while Polish managers accurately predicted most of the workers' job attribute preferences. The results also raised questions regarding the stability of job attributes and the concept of clusters of extrinsic and intrinsic groups of job attributes.